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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-17T16:47:02+00:00

When I want to see the total free space on my android I would

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When I want to see the total free space on my android I would typically look at both the internal storage and the external storage(SD Card) .

Based on what I read in some of the SO answers I would find internal storage data (free space, available space etc.) like this:

 File path            = Environment.getDataDirectory();
 StatFs stat          = new StatFs(path.getPath());
 long blockSize       = stat.getBlockSize();
 long totalBlocks     = stat.getBlockCount();
 long availableBlocks = stat.getAvailableBlocks();
 //Logging added to make sure I am not going mad
 Log.v(TAG,"Available Blocks: "+Long.toString(availableBlocks));
 Log.v(TAG,"Total Blocks: "+Long.toString(totalBlocks));
 Log.v(TAG,"Block size: "+Long.toString(blockSize));

If I wanted to get the external storage(SD Card) of my android device I would run code like this:

  FilePath path           = Environment..getExternalStorageDirectory();
  StatFs stat             = new StatFs(Environment.getPath());
  this.extblockSize       = stat.getBlockSize();
  long exttotalBlocks     = stat.getBlockCount();
  long extavailableBlocks = stat.getAvailableBlocks();
  //More logging to ensure I am not mad!
  Log.v(TAG,"EXTAvailable Blocks: "+Long.toString(extavailableBlocks));
  Log.v(TAG,"EXTTotal Blocks: "+Long.toString(exttotalBlocks));
  Log.v(TAG,"EXTBlock size: "+Long.toString(extblockSize));

Am I right in saying this is how you read external and internal storage on a android device?

Assuming I am right I have a bit of a problem. When I run the above code on my Samsung Galaxy SIII the above pieces of code return exactly the same amount of memory. Now I know my Samsung has about 25GB internal memory and I have a 4GB SD card in.

However both these pieces of code returns the 25GB total which is correct and 23GB free which is also correct but only for the internal storage. I just for the life of me cant figure out how to read the file system information for the SD card. See the log output below for actual values being output.

01-14 20:49:25.485: V/VLRApplication(730): Available Blocks: 6031460
01-14 20:49:25.485: V/VLRApplication(730): Total Blocks: 6702651
01-14 20:49:25.485: V/VLRApplication(730): Block size: 4096

01-14 20:49:25.485: V/VLRApplication(730): EXTAvailable Blocks: 6031460
01-14 20:49:25.485: V/VLRApplication(730): EXTTotal Blocks: 6702651
01-14 20:49:25.485: V/VLRApplication(730): EXTBlock size: 4096

So I must be misunderstanding this concept. Can someone please clarify this for me? Does the call to Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() not set the path to the SD card? Just on a side note I have not tried this in the AVD emulated devices.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Most people’s concept of external differs from Google’s. The internal space is counted as the external storage directory, along with the SD card.

    The problem is, physical SD cards are mounted inside the same file system, and the location varies by manufacturer/ROM. Here and here are some questions concerning this issue. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a device-universal solution.

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